Tuesday, May 13, 2014

First Loves Blog Tour: The best way to mend a broken heart + Giveaway

Today we're extremely excited to be taking part in the FIRST LOVES Global Blog Tour!

This fabulous tour runs through the month of May and the over-arching theme of it is: “you always want what you can’t have.”

As part of the tour I got to ask the wonderfully talented writers one question! You can see their answers below. You can also check out their phenomenal books and then enter the giveaway to win all five of them!

Hope you guys enjoy the First Loves tour stop on Bookish! Feedback is always appreciated! :)

Question:

What is the best way to mend a broken heart?

Answers:

· Mend yourself. If I’ve learned anything from heartbreak, it’s that you can change a person. You can’t fix them. You can’t make them see the wonder of you. BUT. You can always dig deep and recognize that you are worthy of love, worthy of joy. Sometimes it takes something catastrophic like a break up to see how well you can piece things together … alone.

· Fill the space where he or she used to be with other things you love. Find new loves. And the only way to do that is by trying new things. So take your girl friends out for sushi and only order rolls you’ve never tried before. Take up an instrument. Go to concerts. Take a cooking class with your mom. Kiss someone just to kiss them, no agenda or future. Fall more in love with your own life, and I *promise* you will care less about who is or isn’t letting you be a part of theirs.

· Well now that I’m a somewhat rational adult, I’d be able to understand that something better was yet to come. I think I’d get over it pretty quickly with logical thought and maybe a bit of exercise to release any irritation! But when I was a teenager, a brownie hot fudge sundae sure made me feel better. We called it the breakup sundae. Eat it and wallow, but when you’re done, move on.

· I dated the same person all through high school and I’m married to him now, so I don’t have all that much experience with broken hearts in a love/relationship way. But I’ve definitely experienced the feeling of deep disappointment and rejection. As a writer, I’ve gotten LOTS of rejection and sometimes getting a rejection on a book I wrote and love deeply feels like having a broken heart. In these situations, I let myself be upset/wallow about it for one day. I eat some chocolate (or maybe some Girl Scout Cookies!) and complain to my friends and family. But then I think the best way to get over it is to stop wallowing the next morning and get back out there, or in my case, get back to work on my writing.

· Find a new crush! Seriously, even if it’s a guy who doesn’t know you exist, sometimes it’s fun to fantasize about Mr. Right. It gets you focused forward instead of looking back at what-could’ve-been. Also, ice cream.

About the books:

Sixteen-year-old Holly wants to remember her Grandpa forever, but she’d rather forget what he left her in his will: his wedding chapel on the Las Vegas strip. Whatever happened to gold watches, savings bonds, or some normal inheritance?

And then there's Grandpa's letter. Not only is Holly running the business with her recently divorced parents, but she needs to make some serious money—fast. Grandpa also insists Holly reach out to Dax, the grandson of her family's mortal enemy and owner of the cheesy chapel next door. No matter how cute Dax is, Holly needs to stay focused: on her group of guy friends, her disjointed family, work, school and... Dax. No wait, not Dax.

Holly’s chapel represents everything she’s ever loved in her past. Dax might be everything she could ever love in the future. But as for right now, there's a wedding chapel to save.

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

Sky and River have always lived on Island, the only world they’ve ever known. Until the day River spots a boat. Across Ocean, in a place called California, Sky is separated from River and forced to live with a grandmother she’s just met. Here the rules for survival are different. People rely on strange things like cars and cell phones. They keep secrets from one another. And without River, nothing makes sense. Sky yearns for her old life where she was strong and capable, not lost and confused. She must find River so they can return to Island, but the truth behind how they ended up there in the first place will come as the biggest shock of all.

Mackenzie and Landon were the perfect couple . . . until he dumped her and broke her heart. Fast-forward a year and they're back where they first met—Serenity Ranch and Spa, where they are once again working together for the summer. Talk about awkward.

Then, Landon takes a nasty fall and gets amnesia. Suddenly, he’s stuck in the past—literally. His most recent memory is of last summer, when he and Mack were still together, so now he’s calling her pet names and hanging all over her. It's the perfect chance for revenge. The plan is simple: keep Landon at arm’s length, manipulate him so he’s the one falling love, and then BAM, dump him. There’s just one problem: Mack can’t fall for Landon all over again.

The If Only romance line is all about wanting what you can't have, and Mandy Hubbard's hilarious break-up/love story is sure to captivate anyone who has ever wished for a second shot at love.

Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae
323 pagesPublished May 6th 2014 by Bloomsbury

Pippa has always wanted to go to Italy … but not by herself. And certainly not to sit in art school the entire summer learning about dead guys’ paintings. When she steps off the plane in Rome, she realizes that traveling solo gives her the freedom to do whatever she wants. So it’s arrivederci, boring art program and ciao, hot Italian guys!

Charming, daring, and romantic, Bruno is just the Italian Pippa’s looking for—except she keeps running into cute American archeology student Darren everywhere she goes. Pippa may be determined to fall in love with an Italian guy … but the electricity she feels with Darren says her heart might have other plans. Can Pippa figure out her feelings before her parents discover she left the program and—even worse—she loses her chance at love?

The Tour:

Meet these authors on the First Loves Tour!

May 13 at 6:00PM: Barnes & Noble at The Woodlands, The Woodlands, TX with Lindsey Leavitt, Emery Lord, and Kristin Rae